A daily life that resembles the heavens 空に似た日常

[Summary] The fall of humankind was the problem of lewdness. Adam and Eve violated Heaven’s command and formed an impure love, and so sin began; therefore restoration had to be resolved in the exact opposite way — through purity and fidelity. Heaven sought a people that would be the vessel for this, and that people was the Korean people, who have kept the heart-culture of loyalty, filial piety, and fidelity (chung-hyo-yeol). Such a story is The Tale of Chunhyang. Sixteen-year-old Chunhyang, after making a vow for a hundred years with Yi Mong-ryong, keeps her single-hearted devotion through the Song of the Ten Strokes before Magistrate Byeon’s demand to serve him at night; moved by Chunhyang’s fidelity, Heaven brings her a dramatic reunion with Yi, now become a secret royal inspector, conveying the joy of true love to all under heaven. Our people’s representative song of love differs in grain from the love songs of other nations. Because the Korean people had this DNA of loyalty, filial piety, and fidelity, Heaven sent True Parents. Our story of true love must become, beyond a tale of the past, our life of true love in the present. We are a people that will make the heart-culture known to the world and fulfill the Heavenly mandate of the Great Epic of the Korean People as a Chosen People.

(True Father, April 7, 1997) There is a word, fidelity (節槪). In Korea, by whom was a woman of fidelity represented? By Chunhyang. Korea is a country of courtesy with fidelity. Centering on the wife, it is Chunhyang. Centering on the filial daughter, we speak of Sim Cheong. So one must become more than Sim Cheong and more than Chunhyang. Though Magistrate Byeon told her to serve him at night, she said she could not obey. Though her life be torn to shreds, she could not do so. Because life came into being through love, even if it is sacrificed to a bad love, in the end it is resurrected as a shining love.

(True Mother’s autobiography) Everyone desires true love. Though a thousand, ten thousand years pass, no one says they dislike true love. Because true love is eternal, it is that love in spring, that love in summer, that love in autumn, that love in winter. It is that love when one is a child, that love when one becomes an adult, that love when one grows old.

*One Question We Must Meditate On Together

In this precious time when the fortune of Heaven (天運) is resting on the Korean peninsula, today we pose a very important question. “Why did God choose this Korean people, of all peoples, as a chosen people?” And “Why did True Parents come not to the great power of the United States, nor to China, but to the small land of Korea?” If we know the answer to these two questions, it becomes brightly clear why we must live as Blessed Families, and why we must keep purity like our very life. So, to find that answer, let us begin from the following questions.

First, from what did the fall of humankind originate?

Second, then what kind of people must the people to be saved be?

Third, was the Korean people indeed such a people?

Fourth, and so what mission has Heaven given us?

As we take up these four in turn, we come to know that there is a clear reason the Korean people were chosen as a chosen people.

*The Fall of Humankind — The Problem of Lewdness in Taking the Fruit of Good and Evil

Open the very first part of the Bible. What is the saddest event in the story of Genesis? It is Adam and Eve taking the fruit of good and evil. True Parents brightly revealed the secret of this fruit of good and evil through the theory of the fall. The fruit of good and evil was a matter of purity — a forbidden fruit that one must not recklessly pluck and eat, desiring the thing of its time before its time. Adam and Eve, in the twice-eight prime of youth while still in the period of immaturity, fell to the false temptation of the archangel Lucifer, and, failing to keep the pure true love that Heavenly Parent had commanded them to guard with their lives, committed the sin of defiling the lineage through the fall. So sin began in the reproductive organ, the organ of holy love. In human history, all suffering began from that one point — lewdness.

The moment we realize this, we come to know one grave truth: that Heavenly Parent, seeking to save humankind, had to find a central people that could resolve that ‘problem of lewdness’ through ‘purity and fidelity.’ If the fall was lewdness, restoration must be purity. If the fall was the bursting-out of momentary lust, restoration must be an unchanging single-hearted devotion. If the fall was violating Heaven’s command at the stake of life, restoration must be keeping Heaven’s command at the stake of life. Now, please spread out the map of the world with God’s eyes. Where on this earth is a people that regarded fidelity, pure love, purity, and pure blood as more precious than life?

That people was precisely our Korean people. We call our people the ‘white-clad people (白衣民族).’ It means a people that loves to wear white. And white is not merely one color. White is the color of peace, the color of holiness, the color of undefiled, clean purity.

*Chung-hyo-yeol (忠孝烈) — The Heart-Culture Flowing Deep in the Breast of the Korean People

In the heart of our Korean people there were three treasures: namely, loyalty, filial piety, and fidelity (chung-hyo-yeol). Today it is the ‘fierce fidelity (烈)’ that we must engrave most deeply. What is fidelity? It is a fidelity that blazes like a flame and does not shrink even from death — an unchanging single-hearted devotion that regards true love and faithfulness as its very life.

*The True Love of Seong Chunhyang — A Beautiful Flower Bloomed in the Breast of the Korean People

And there is a story that holds this character of fidelity of the Korean people most perfectly, most beautifully, most dramatically. It is precisely The Song of Chunhyang the Faithful Wife Who Kept Her Vow (烈女春香守節歌), The Tale of Chunhyang. It is a story you know well. In the land of Namwon in Jeolla Province, a daughter was born through the deep devotion of the courtesan Wol-mae. On the Dano festival, the first meeting of the two took place at the swing-ground of the Gwanghallu Pavilion. Yi Mong-ryong, the son who had come down with his father newly appointed as magistrate of Namwon, and Seong Chunhyang met for the first time at the swing-ground of the Gwanghallu. Afterward Chunhyang, agonizing between the status-limitation of a courtesan and fidelity, made with him a vow firm as stone and iron. At this Chunhyang promised ‘a love that goes even beyond death.’ Yi Mong-ryong too, answering Chunhyang’s firm fidelity, made a firm vow for a hundred years before Heaven and earth. The meeting of the two was without flaw, like a bond of Heaven, and their love was deep and fragrant as the scent of flowers.

(Watching the video of the ‘Song of Love’ from The Tale of Chunhyang) “Come here, let me carry you on my back and play. Love, love, love, my love. It is love, my love. Go over there, let me see your back. Come here, let me see your front. Walk daintily, let me see your gait. Smile sweetly, let me see your teeth. You are surely my love. Eohwa dung-dung, my love. That dainty step coming toward me is love; those eyes smiling a moment are love; that peach-blossom cheek flushing pink is love too. Eohwa dung-dung, my love.

Dung-dung-dung, my lord. Oho dung-dung, my lord. Dung-dung-dung-dung, oho dung-dung, my lord…”

Thus a blazing love passed like a dream for a year. But happiness did not last long. Yi Mong-ryong’s father was summoned by the king and had to leave for Seoul, and Mong-ryong had to go too. Mong-ryong came to Chunhyang and said, ‘I will go up to Seoul, surely pass the state examination, and come to fetch you. Until that day, wait only for me.’ Chunhyang, swallowing her tears, answered, ‘Young master, I believe you. I will wait.’ Thus the two parted in tears, and Chunhyang’s longing began.

(from the Song of Chunhyang) If my beloved knew this longing, he too would pine for me. Lying alone in an empty room, a sigh is my only companion, and what wells up, twisting through my nine-fold inmost heart, is tears. If my tears gathered into a sea and my sighs became a clear wind, I would set my body on a single leaf of a boat and seek my Hanyang lord — but the grief piled in my heart is mine alone. The night deepens to the third watch; if I sit, will my beloved come; if I lie, will sleep come? Neither beloved nor sleep comes. Surely parting is the enemy. My waiting is not little and my longing has been long, but the regret knotted in my coils — who but my beloved can resolve it? O bright Heaven, look down and let us meet soon.

But a newly appointed magistrate, a stubborn man called Byeon Hak-do who treated the people recklessly, hearing of Seong Chunhyang’s pure love, coveted Chunhyang and demanded that she serve him at night. Before the greedy desire of one corrupt official, pure love met a great storm. Magistrate Byeon Hak-do’s advances came to Chunhyang. “Chunhyang, your heart is truly beautiful. But now forget Yi Mong-ryong. Is it right to be bound to the magistrate of your own town, or right to be bound to the young boy Yi Mong-ryong? Come, say something.”

Chunhyang said, “Magistrate, I have already made a vow for a hundred years with the young master Yi. Just as a loyal subject does not serve two kings, a faithful woman does not serve two husbands. Though I die a thousand times, I cannot obey the magistrate’s command.”

At this the runner stepped forward: ‘You insolent wench, this fleeting world lasts but a moment even if you live it out. The magistrate speaks so out of regard for you; for one of courtesan stock like you, what is fidelity? To welcome the new magistrate is only proper; utter no nonsense.’ At this Chunhyang, utterly aghast, said, ‘In loyalty, filial piety, and fidelity, is there high and low? Hear me carefully. You say a courtesan has no loyalty, filial piety, or fidelity; let me tell you one by one. Nong-seon, a courtesan of Hwanghae, kept her fidelity and died at Dongseon-ryeong; Non-gae, a courtesan of Jinju, is enshrined in our nation’s Loyalty-Martyr Shrine; Hwa-wol, a courtesan of Cheongju, is renowned for fidelity; and for Il-ji-hong, a courtesan of Andong, a living-faithful-woman gate was erected. So do not say that a courtesan has no faithful women. When I first met the young master Yi, with a heart firm as Mount Tai I vowed fidelity, so that no one could take it away, and though Zhuge Liang with his high arts prayed down the southeast wind, he could not shake the single-hearted devotion of this girl’s heart.’

But what can a frail girl do before a man of power? In the end Chunhyang is bound to the beating-frame and struck with the club. With each blow, she answers with that famous firm single-hearted devotion in the Song of the Ten Strokes (十杖歌).

Single-hearted (一片丹心), firm of heart, to serve one husband (一夫從事) is my will.

Though I take these blows and die outright, I cannot forget the young master Yi.

Knowing the three bonds and five relations (三綱五倫), my lord of Samcheong-dong (三淸洞), the young master Yi, I cannot forget.

Though my four limbs (四肢) be torn apart, living and dying together (死生同居), our lord — in life and death I cannot forget.

Waking and sleeping unforgotten, our lord comes wholly to my mind.

Though killed sixty thousand times, this knotted heart can never change.

My seven-jeweled rosy face (七寶紅顔) — I am dying.

Governors and magistrates of the eight provinces (八道), you came down to govern the people (治民), not to come down to inflict cruel punishment (惡刑).

My nine-fold inmost heart (九曲肝腸) rots in its coils, and these tears of mine will become the nine-year flood.

Though I live ten times and die nine (十生九死), the wronged spirit (寃魂) of sixteen-year-old little Chunhyang is pitiable.

What sprang from Chunhyang’s jade-like body was red blood, and what flowed down was tears. Blood and tears flowed together like a red stream. Chunhyang spoke yet more stubbornly: ‘Rather than degrade me so, dismember me and kill me; then I will become a wronged-spirit bird and, with the soul-summoning bird, cry out, and on a moonlit night in the desolate hills, while our young master Yi sleeps, I might appear to him even in his dream…’ As she spoke, she fainted.

*In Prison — Waiting Amid Suffering

Chunhyang came to be one shut in a cold prison cell. There was no telling when she would be released. Magistrate Byeon’s coercion and cajoling did not cease, but Chunhyang never once submitted. As the days passed her body grew weaker, yet she expressed her ever-firmer heart of fidelity thus.

The bright moon of the fifteenth night is buried in a band of cloud;

our lord in Seoul is buried in Samcheong-dong.

Moon, moon, do you see him? The place where my beloved is — why can I not see it?

On your way, to our lord in Samcheong-dong of Hanyang, please carry my words.

In the deep night within the cell she longed for Yi Mong-ryong and shed tears. On bright-moon nights she gazed at the moonlight leaking in and gazed endlessly toward Seoul, where her beloved was; spring went and summer came, autumn went and winter came. Still Yi Mong-ryong did not come. Yet Chunhyang was never shaken. That love is waiting, and waiting is faith itself, Chunhyang knew with her whole body. (It overlaps with True Mother’s state in prison.)

As the saying goes, utmost sincerity moves Heaven, and in the end Heaven did not turn away from that fidelity. Yi Mong-ryong, who had passed the state examination at the top in Hanyang, came in the guise of a lowly beggar and, first of all, sought out Chunhyang, shut in the prison of Namwon.

*Reunion in Prison: At that time Chunhyang was dreaming a sweet dream of joyfully reuniting with Yi Mong-ryong, who appeared in golden light; startled awake by a sound, she saw a person who appeared in tattered clothes and beggar’s guise, and at first could not recognize him. But that gaze, that voice alone, were surely the beloved she had pined for. ‘Young master…’ Chunhyang called faintly, and Mong-ryong rushed in and seized her hand: ‘Chunhyang, I have come. I have come.’ The two held each other and shed tears. Chunhyang asked, ‘What has happened — what is this state of yours?’ Mong-ryong said weakly, ‘I failed the examination. I have no power to save you — what shall I do?’ Chunhyang wiped her tears and answered quietly.

‘Since you have come, it is all right. I waited, trusting you would come, and now that I have seen you I have no regret. They say that tomorrow, at Magistrate Byeon’s birthday feast, they mean to kill me; but having seen your face one last time before then, I can now close my eyes even in death.’

Mong-ryong, hearing Chunhyang’s single-hearted devotion through tears, gripped her hand firmly, and in those two hands was held the promise vowed before Heaven.

The next morning, Magistrate Byeon’s birthday feast was held grandly with music resounding. Magistrate Byeon, tipping his cup in good humor, said, ‘Since today’s feast is so fine, is there no one who will compose a poem?’ At this a beggar in tatters strode into the feast-ground and cried out loudly, ‘This fellow will offer up a poem.’

The fine wine in the golden cask (金樽美酒) is the blood of a thousand people (千人血); the choice viands on the jade tray (玉盤佳肴) are the fat of ten thousand commoners (萬姓膏).

When the candle’s tears fall (燭淚落時), the people’s tears fall (民淚落); where the sound of song is loud (歌聲高處), the sound of grievance is loud (怨聲高).

The fine wine of the golden cup is the blood of all the people; the savory viands of the jade platter are the fat of ten thousand people. When the candle sheds tears, the people too shed tears; where the song rings high, the sound of resentment rings higher.

Magistrate Byeon, receiving the poem, did not grasp its meaning, but the runners, their legs trembling, muttered ‘Alas, trouble has broken out’ and began to slip away, babbling in confusion: ‘Oh, it’s cold — the door is coming in, shut the wind; the water is drying up, drink the throat.’ At the very moment the feast froze cold, from every side burst a thunderous cry: “The Secret Royal Inspector appears!” As if heaven and earth had overturned, in an instant the feast was overturned. Magistrate Byeon, scattered out of his wits, rolled off his seat, the feast-tables were overturned, and the government people fled in every direction. From every side the inspector’s soldiers poured in, and Yi Mong-ryong raised the horse-tablet high: ‘Byeon Hak-do, come out at once!’ Byeon Hak-do, who had been so arrogant, was bound and dragged out. Yi Mong-ryong, in inspector’s robes, ascended the high seat, dismissed the resident magistrate, and interrogated the prisoners. At the last, Mong-ryong asked, ‘Why is that woman shut in prison?’ The jailer reported, ‘She was imprisoned for refusing to serve Magistrate Byeon at night.’ At this the inspector said to Chunhyang, ‘Since you defied the magistrate’s command in the name of keeping fidelity, how can you hope to live? You deserve to die; but if you accept serving me at night, I will spare you — will you still refuse?’ At this Chunhyang, aghast, spoke out: ‘Every magistrate who comes down is a dog. Hear me, Inspector. Does a high crag of towering cliff crumble because the wind blows? Does green bamboo change because snow falls? Give no such command, and quickly kill me.’

At this the inspector opened his brocade pouch: ‘Chunhyang, raise your face.’ When Chunhyang raised her face and looked at the inspector, it was the beloved she had dreamed of, who had come as a beggar the day before. Chunhyang tottered, sank down on the spot, and sobbed: ‘Oh my, is this a dream? Or waking? If it is a dream, I do not want to wake.’ Half in tears, half in laughter, she spoke as if out of her senses. Mong-ryong ran and seized Chunhyang’s hand and raised her up. ‘Chunhyang!’

Afterward Yi Mong-ryong and Seong Chunhyang went up to Seoul and were formally married. The king too highly commended Chunhyang’s firm fidelity, bestowed on her the title of Lady of Chaste Fidelity (Jeongnyeol Buin), and liberated her from her courtesan status. A loyal subject does not serve two kings, and a faithful woman does not serve two husbands. Chunhyang’s fidelity was another name for the purest and deepest love a human being can hold. By that love, Heaven too was at last moved and sent back her beloved with the horse-tablet in his hand.

Members, this is not a mere love story of two people, but a story of holy true love that anyone who is human must regard as life itself. The protagonist here is Chunhyang, a young girl of sixteen. In Chunhyang’s love, filial piety (carrying on the parent’s teaching), fidelity (keeping the promise at the stake of life), and loyalty (resisting corrupt power) are melted together in one body.

*The Korean People’s Love Story, Compared with the World’s Tales of Fidelity

Of course, there are tales that sing of a similar fidelity in many places in the world. The heart that treasures fidelity is a universal human emotion. But when we compare the differences, we can see that ours differs in grain from other love stories.

China’s Zhu Yingtai, when her beloved Liang Shanbo died, leaped into the place where his grave split open and flew away as a pair of butterflies. Love is fulfilled in death.

England’s Juliet refuses to live in a world without Romeo and takes her own life — a tragic love.

Persia’s Layla and Majnun, never once touching flesh their whole lives, breathe their last amid longing and unite only spiritually.

These are all beautiful love stories. But the love story ends in ‘death.’ They are sad endings — dying to keep love, dying having lost love, or dying without once meeting the beloved.

But what of our Chunhyang’s story? Though she was resolute before death, regarding fidelity as life itself, she survived! And not merely survived: it is a happy ending of love in which corrupt power is punished, she rejoices together with the townspeople, the nation officially recognizes that love, the once-insurmountable wall of status collapses, and, taking the hand of her beloved and smiling broadly, she makes everyone happy.

China: fidelity is often combined with family honor or the parents’ will.

Japan: fidelity tends to be emphasized as an expression of loyalty toward a superior.

The West: fidelity is closer to an honorable devotion within an aristocratic order.

The Middle East: fidelity is a value of guarding family honor; the epics are dominated by tragic endings when it is broken.

Korea: fidelity is not duty or a passive command, but a spontaneous love of the true heart.

Chunhyang’s love is precisely our people’s love story. This kind of love was the form of true love that Heavenly Parent so longed to see. To save humankind, fallen through lewdness, what kind of love was needed? A love that goes even beyond death, a love unbroken even before power, a love that leaps over the wall of status, and at last a love that makes everyone joyful — a people with the DNA of precisely such a love was needed.

*To Such a Korean People, Heaven Sent True Parents

Now we can answer those first two questions. Why did God choose the Korean people as a chosen people? Why did True Parents come to Korea?

Because the fall was lewdness, restoration had to be fidelity. The story that most perfectly embodied that fidelity was the Korean people’s love story. The most shining representative figure of that fidelity was Chunhyang. Against such a background, Heavenly Parent had the ‘only begotten Daughter,’ who would receive His first love, born on this Korean peninsula.

True Father, the Reverend Mun Seon-myeong, came to this earth in 1920 in Jeongju, North Pyongan Province, and True Mother, Madam Han Hak-ja, in 1943 in Anju, South Pyongan Province, in the time when the Korean people were most wretched under the occupation of Japanese imperialism. True Mother was sent to this earth as the only begotten Daughter through the Cheongju Han clan, in a family of faith of three generations of only daughters, following the lineage of her maternal grandmother Jo Won-mo, godmother Hong Sun-ae, and father Han Seung-un. To overturn Adam and Eve’s fall in the adolescence of age sixteen, True Father inherited the mission of the Second Advent from Jesus at dawn on a mountaintop at Easter at the age of sixteen, and True Mother, at the age of sixteen, stood in the position of True Parents for the first time in human history through the Marriage Supper of the Lamb with True Father.

*Our Mission — Let Us Carry On the Footsteps of True Parents

Then how must we, as the Blessed Families of True Parents, live?

First, we ourselves must realize a ‘true love like Chunhyang’s.’ To keep to the end a single-hearted devotion toward the beloved to whom one has once given one’s heart — that is the duty of a Blessed Family. But what of today’s world? Half of married families end in divorce. The love that must not change is growing ever fainter. That is why the value of ‘unchanging love,’ fidelity (烈), is not an anachronism but the most shining value. When each and every one of our Blessed Families lives with ‘single-hearted married love,’ we are not a mere family but qualify as tribal messiahs.

Second, we must spread the culture of filial-love (hyo-jeong) and the culture of heart (simjeong) to the whole world. The Korean Wave (Hallyu) is not merely one song or one drama going out into the world. With the Korean people’s heart-culture — that warm jeong (情), unchanging faithfulness, the filial-love that attends parents, the fidelity that guards love like life — we must soak the hearts of the people of the world. This is precisely the culture of filial-love (hyo-jeong).

*Closing Words — Rise, O Korean People

Beloved members, True Parents said these words:

“The land of Korea will hereafter play the role of a mountain peak for the whole world. And a time will come when the people of the world will feel deep regret that they were not born as Koreans.”

Are these words merely to stir up our people’s pride? No. These are words that are realized only when we know our identity, attend Heaven, and live in a form that the world may envy.

In the very place where Adam and Eve collapsed through lewdness, we must rise again with true love, purity, pure love, pure blood, chastity, and fidelity. If Chunhyang cried out ‘single-hearted devotion’ with the Song of the Ten Strokes upon the beating-frame, then we, in an age where false love runs rampant, must show ‘true love.’ We must become a land of the fortune of Heaven, filled with such songs of love — the sending-place of world peace.